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Ubuntu Google Drive Client with Grive and Grive Tools

Submitted by The Fan Club on Mon, 2013-09-02 12:59

There is no official Google Drive Client available for Linux at the moment, but a command line program called Grive provides an open source Linux solution. What was missing was an easy setup, install and desktop integration on Ubuntu. I decided to create the missing parts and so Grive Tools came to be - Ubuntu Google Drive desktop integration made easy.

All comments and improvements are very welcome as this is purely a personal project at this point and must be considered a work in progress.

* Update February 2015 : 70 000+ downloads and counting on Launchpad.

Features:

Grive Tools will assist in the installation and setup of Google Drive on your Ubuntu desktop.

Grive Tools consists of the following components:

Grive Setup - The main setup installation program to get started.

Grive Indicator - Application indicator for Google Drive.

A GUI installation will guide you through the the installation process and setup Google Drive in your home folder.

You will be able to access your Google Drive files locally* as well as synchronize your files with your Google Drive online. (* excluding Google Docs)

Auto Sync - Grive Tools keeps your Google Drive synchronized automatically by detecting changes in your local Google Drive folder. New files and folders will be uploaded to your Google Drive automatically after a few seconds.

Bi-Directional Sync - When you Sync your Google Drive new files online will be downloaded to your local folder and new local files will be uploaded to your Google Drive online.

The application has been tested on Ubuntu 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04 and 14.10 - 64bit and 32bit.

Translators Wanted:

We are in the process of adding translations for Grive Tools

If you would like to contribute and assist in translating the software please contact us.

Extra languages we would like to support listed below, but all other languages are also welcome.

Urdu

Bengali

How to setup Google Drive using Grive Tools :

1. Getting Started - Launch Grive Setup.

Start the application from the dash by searching for Grive Setup

2. Sign in to Google Drive and allow the Grive app.

Once Grive is installed, you will be asked to give Grive permission to access your Google Drive.

When you click Next a browser window should open and present you with Google Login page.

Log in to your Google Account.

You will then be asked to give Grive permission to access you Google Drive.

Click Accept to continue.

You will then be give a Google authentication code to copy and paste into the Grive Setup box provided.

Copy the code from your browser and paste in the Grive Setup box.

3. Watch your Google Drive files appear on your Desktop.

If everything went well, your Google Drive folder will open and your files will be downloaded from your Google Drive.

Please note that this first sync can take a long time especially if you have a lot of files stored on Google Drive.

When the first sync is complete the installer will quit.

4. The Google Drive indicator and desktop launcher icon.

After installation you will find a Google Drive and Google Drive Indicator launcher icons in your Dash.

Click on the Google Drive Indicator to start.

Drag the Google Drive icon to your Unity launcher.

You will then be able to right-click and view the menu options.

5. How To Synchronize your Google Drive.

All options for Grive Tools are available from the application Indicator menu.

Click on the Google Drive Indicator in your dash to start the indicator for the first time. (See step 4 before)

Auto Sync is ON by default so no need to sync manually. If new files are copied to your Google Drive folder or file are changed, these files will automatically be uploaded to your Google Drive online after a few seconds.

If you prefer to manually synchronize your Google Drive folder, simply de-select Auto Sync and click on Sync Now from the Google Drive Indicator menu.

6. Google Drive Indicator Preferences

From the application indicator menu you can select your preferences.

Lubuntu / LXDE users and users that use Light Themes need to select the Prefer Light Icon Theme or they might not be able to see the default white application indicator icon as shown below.

- Version 1.1 Released : Added Google Drive Application Indicator, Auto Sync feature, Preferences as well as light icon theme support. Users updating from version 1.0 should first un-install the previous version before installing version 1.1

Re-Run the Grive Setup again and do a new setup deleting the local Google Drive folder. The first sync can take some time, wait for it to finish before syncing a second PC. It does work on more than one PC.

Ok. Everythings works fine now. I was just a little bit unpatient. ;) But I have the feeling that the PC slows down a lot while the Sync. Grive needs to sync 45+gb for me, so my PC is one hole day slow. Is that a known issue?

Grive builds a view of all files and folders that need to be synced bi-directionally. If you have thousands of files this can take while to do on-line, especially on the first sync depending on your connection speed. The computer itself should not be slow. The more complicated your sub-folder structure and number of files - the longer things take on the first sync.

Heh. I was writing a client very similar to this in Java after InSync started charging but I see you guys beat me to it. Looks good. Good job, guys! I like it. This just wraps around the CLI grive program, right? How did you do the timing to detect Cloud-side file modifications? It was easy on client side and that's where my production stopped. Lol

Thank you. Yes is wraps Grive. Cloud-side file mod notifications are not yet implemented, only local Google Drive folder changes. Files from the cloud side changes get synced when a local sync is initiated for now.

Is grive itself being developed? I installed version 0.3.0-1+git20131016~thefanclub~saucy1 but github says last commits to grive happened in May, which puzzles me a bit.
Also, is it possibleto change the folder to sync to?

Hi Tomas, the date on the grive build we did was just a snapshot date, it does not refer to commits in github. To answer your question - yes, Grive is being taken over by another group of developers that will continue the development work. Currently changing the folder is not possible.

Hi, thank you for your great app. It is better than google-drive-ocaml for my use; it is simpler and faster to use.
I'd like to ask one more feature, i.e., no animation light theme. The indication icon on the right above
seems to keep animating, even when I am not editing files in Google Drive folder.
Thanks!

Hi, I'm new to Ubuntu, I'm using Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, the application is very good and useful for my works... I have setup everything as per the instruction in an Administrator user account, but I cannot do that in a standard user account, I provide the administrator password when it asked for but still not accepting the password... please guide me on this

Hi! I installed Grive a couple of weeks ago (Ubuntu version 13.10) and it worked perfetly fine the first week, but now the synchronisation with the web application stopped, so that I end up with a different set of files on my computer and in the cloud. When clicking on "Visit Google Drive on the web", it get to my Drive account, so it doesn't seem to be a problem related to using a wrong user account. Grive is, however, happily synchronising, I just don't know with what :) Has this occurred before
Many thanks!

35GB will take many hours to sync even on a fast line. You need to let it complete the first sync then everything should be there. If you have more than 16000 folders it will not sync all because of a linux kernel limitation in monitoring folders (this can be increased if needed)

Just a quick tip. The grive-setup script uses xdg-open to open the google/grive authentication URL. This opens the URL with the default web browser, which on my computer is google chrome logged into my personal google account. I want my google drive to be synchronised with my work account, so I imply copied the URL from the URL bar, opened a chrome browser logged in as my work google account and opened the URL. This then linked grive to the work account. You can use the same trick with different browsers to determine which google account your drive is connected to. However you can only have one drive and one account linked.

Hi, Regarding syncing Google Document files (spreadsheet, etc) have you thought of integrating the functionality of Ooo2gd into your code? Though I believe some of the code needs fixing due to Google changing their APIs. https://code.google.com/p/ooo2gd/

Great tool, many thanks. I found problem with syncing on Ubuntu 13.10. Grive confirms that sync is compieted, but Grive folder doesn’t show changes made on the Google Drive on the web, and vice versa, new files visible in Grive folder are not found in the web.

Hi Mike. If you add files to Google Drive online it will only sync if you do a manual Sync Now, or on the next auto sync. If you add file in your local Google Drive folder - if Auto Sync is on, it should sync to Google Drive online, and also download new files added online. Did you install Grive from our PPA ? Are you using the latest version of Grive Tools ? If all else fails - it is best to run Grive Setup again and delete the local Google Drive folder and start fresh. Make sure the first sync is complete before doing anything else.

Gnome Desktop places the application indicators on the bottom status menu by default. You will need to use a Gnome Shell Extension to move the icons to the top menu. Two Gnome Extensions to try would be 'AppIndicator Support' or 'TopIcons'

Google Dive on windows keeps the sycncing process bidirectional.
When I was used to use windows (I happily switched to Ubuntu since a couple of months ago) I used G-drive to keep 2 PC synchronised via G-drive. Sort of a team-working. When I changed a file on my pc, the change was sent to G-drive and then to the other PC, that this way was kept synchronized with my pc. I'm talking of just a folder, of course. Any hope to have, in the future, the same feature here on Grive?

Grive does do Bi-Directional Sync. The auto-sync feature of Grive Indicator will sync all changes from you local computer to Google Drive automatically. But changes on Google Drive Online will not be synced automatically. You will need to do a manual sync by selecting 'Sync Now' from the menu on your PC to sync the changes from Google Drive online to your machine.

Hi, this looks great, but what about non-ubuntu linux users (e.g: Fedora)? I would love to test it and maybe add some code to it.
Is it free/open source? Where can I see the code?
Thanks, and keep the good work!

The program has been tested on Ubuntu only. Grive supports up to 16 000 folders/subfolders. Did you wait for the first sync to complete during setup ? Are you using the latest version of Grive Tools ? Delete all local files then run setup again and wait for all files to sync before using the indicator.

Hi Dan. You cannot break the install. Just run Grive Setup again and when asked delete the Google Drive folder and start again. Wait for first Sync to complete before trying to add anything to your local Google Drive folder for upload.

First of all great work. Finally Google Drive on Ubuntu!
I found some issues like the manual server-side sync issue that already has been reported here.
However a bigger issue is that it doesn't work for multiple system accounts (i.e. Ubuntu accounts):
I have set up Grive on my (Ubuntu) account; both sync and indicator work well. Next I login to my wife's account and start Grive Setup there. I connect to Google Drive with another Google account and the setup seems to be OK. However there is no sync between the local account and the Google Drive account. When I start the Grive Indicator I see the mouse pointer change for a few seconds and then nothing. Logout and login doesn't help.
I rebooted the machine and directly logged into my wife's account. Both sync and indicator worked well. However when I switched to my own (Ubuntu) account I noticed that both sync and indicator didn't work anymore for my account! So it seems the Grive functionality stops working when logging in to another account.

Hi Jeroen, when switching accounts while grive is running will cause your problem. It will not allow another instance of Grive or the indicator to start. Exit the indicator before switching to the other account and see if that works. Also make sure a sync is not in progress when switching accounts.

Thanks for your step by step post. I followed and now is working prefect on my note vaio. Unfortunately UbuntuOne is being closed and now I have to move from it. This post made it possible. Once again, CONGRATZ!
Van Bastos (Ubuntu user since 2007) from Brazil - Come to see FIFA CUP. hahaha

Hi Claudio. Make sure your Ubuntu version is up to date. Some important files have changed with Ubuntu 14.04 not long ago. Also do not add files to the Google Drive folder before the first sync is done during install. You can also send us your log files - see instructions for location. What version of Ubuntu are you using and what desktop?

Hi,
I'm note skillful on Linux and was confort to UbuntuOne now they will shut it down (too bad)
I have installed using this tutorial on Ubuntu 13.10 on my Notebook and is running good.
Now while installing on My Desktop running Ubuntu 14.04, I got this error msg:
Erros foram encontrados durante o processamento de:
/var/cache/apt/archives/grive_0.3.0-1+git20131016~thefanclub~trusty1_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Could somebody help me? Thanks in Advance.
Van Bastos - Brazil.

I followed the installation instructions but it failed thus:
"The following packages have unmet dependencies.
grive-tools : Depends: grive (>= 0.3) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages."
Is there a later (beta?) version of Grive available which I can use instead of the official 0.2 variant?

Hi,
My question is kind of silly. Is the data transfer between the google's online server and Grive similar in terms of security as the official client application.
I wanted to make sure that the data exchange was at least matching the official app in terms of security.
Either way, I think you have an awesome application!

Thanks for contributing the GT for us all!
Using the MATE desktop, the Google Drive Indicator icon will appear in the Indication Area; if one is using the light theme there will just be a space. Clicking into the space will make the menu pop-up, which allows to configure the Preferences and check the "Prefer Light Theme" option.